Sneak Peek at New Mac Pro 2013

[Michael Wisniewski]

Sneak Peek at New Mac Pro 2013
Apple - Mac Pro

Also the keynote speech
Apple - Apple Events - WWDC 2013 Keynote

[Denise Wall]

Nice. I wonder if it'll run FCP7.

[Jack Zhang]

You'll have to get a external USB DVD writer to even load FCP7. There's no optical drive in this machine.

Also, trying to use CUDA? Forget about it, It's AMD FirePro.

[Zach Love]

The biggest thing I can think of when I saw this was how expensive anything Thunderbolt still is.

Yeah Thunderbolt has great possibilities, but if I need a PCIe expansion enclosure I need to spend an extra $400-$600.

I currently have three cards in the back of my Mac Pro at work, the cheapest enclosure I can find is $900 for three slots. If this new Mac Pro is $900 cheaper than the current one, then great. But if this new Mac Pro starts at the same price, then I need to add an extra 25-35% to the budget for a new machine. Even more if I want some Thunderbolt hard drives.

If Thunderbolt accessories came down in price by 50-75% then I'd be really excited. As is, I'm disappointed.

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

You'll have to get a external USB DVD writer to even load FCP7. There's no optical drive in this machine.

Also, trying to use CUDA? Forget about it, It's AMD FirePro.

Honestly they cost $30.00 and are the easiest thing in the world to add to the computer. Why even complain about an optical drive anymore? Just buy the one you would prefer instead of taking the one Apple would make you use. I cannot believe people still complain about a $30.00 USB accessory. I have used an external Blu-ray burner with my MBP for years now. I would much rather use it then the drive built into the MBP. Faster, more stable burns, makes less noise and again I can adapt it whenever I want.

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

The biggest thing I can think of when I saw this was how expensive anything Thunderbolt still is.

Yeah Thunderbolt has great possibilities, but if I need a PCIe expansion enclosure I need to spend an extra $400-$600.

I currently have three cards in the back of my Mac Pro at work, the cheapest enclosure I can find is $900 for three slots. If this new Mac Pro is $900 cheaper than the current one, then great. But if this new Mac Pro starts at the same price, then I need to add an extra 25-35% to the budget for a new machine. Even more if I want some Thunderbolt hard drives.

If Thunderbolt accessories came down in price by 50-75% then I'd be really excited. As is, I'm disappointed.

Zach you hit it on the head about the cost. I use thunderbolt on my MBP with a Blackmagic device for video output as well as thunderbolt storage and it is great but it is very expensive. Well maybe the Blackmagic device wasn't all that much more expensive but other devices are. I also predict this machine will not be cheap. Yeah a work station class is never cheap but I feel like Apple is maxing this thing out to be the top and will be priced accordingly. On top of that like you said this module approach while pretty cool is going to be very expensive. Sure it's going to be a great machine but it is going to cost a lot of money to buy a MP, external TB raid for storage, 4k monitors Apple is talking about driving with those GPUs, external TB sound cards, video I/O cards, ESATA cards and so forth.

This is is an engineering marvel but that is going to come at a price. I'm willing bet there will be more entry level versions of this machine but I think even the lowest end will have to have two video cards. If you get just a quad core version I doubt it will be any faster than a top of the line 27" iMac. In that situation you lose the 27"monitor but gain four extra TB ports and bragging rights. It may come in 6 core and 8 core versions which might be a nice in between but I still think that is going to cost a lot.

I would love to get one of these but considering my quad core MBP handles most of the HD content I throw at it I may find it hard to justify the expected insane price point. Then again I am already invested in TB so maybe it will not be so bad.

[Mark OConnell]

I'm actually kind of relieved that I broke down and bought a new mac pro less then a year ago. This beast won't need to be replaced for a couple of years at least and by that time thunderbolt costs should be more reasonable.

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

Zach you hit it on the head about the cost. I use thunderbolt on my MBP with a Blackmagic device for video output as well as thunderbolt storage and it is great but it is very expensive. Well maybe the Blackmagic device wasn't all that much more expensive but other devices are.

Here's the thing though - those might have been expensive, but if you buy a Mac Pro when it comes out they'll plug right in and keep working. Your initial investment isn't wasted.

I've been through a couple iterations of the pro towers over the years where I bought one and within the year the expansion card standards changed. I couldn't upgrade to the newest cards in my year-old machine because the newest stuff used the newer card standards - and any cards I did have might not work in the new system if I upgraded.

Originally Posted by Zach Love

Yeah Thunderbolt has great possibilities, but if I need a PCIe expansion enclosure I need to spend an extra $400-$600.

Conversely - if you don't need to add any expansion cards you don't need to pay for slots that sit empty. Many people don't, while on the other hand a few people were always vocal about the need for more than the 3 slots apple traditionally had. It seems like the new approach makes more sense - add as much or as little expansion as you need. And when it comes time to upgrade to the next mac pro, unplug it all and plug it into the new one and keep on working.

Plus - we've only really seen thunderbolt devices hit the market in any volume recently. I expect the prices will drop within the year as there's both more competition and more demand from users buying these new systems.